The preferred embodiment concerns a method and a system for transfer of data from a document application into a data application.
In daily office work forms must often be filled with data. For the most part the data originate from documents. These data contained in the documents are often entered by hand into data fields of the form. For this purpose, the form and the document are simultaneously presented on a computer screen. In the event that the computer screen should not possess a sufficient size, the document containing the data is also often printed out and the data are transcribed from the printed copy into the form. In the event that the document exists as an electronic text file it is also possible to use the “copy+paste” function provided by prevalent operating systems, with which function a data value in a document can be marked, copied and inserted into the data format of an electronic form. These known methods are very work-intensive since either all data must be manually input or a user must continuously switch back and forth between a document application in which the document is presented and a data application in which the form is displayed. This simple activity is thus time-consuming and ties up significant productivity in tasks that could be used for more worthwhile activities.
In order to automate this activity, wholly automatic data recognition systems have been developed with which large quantities of documents are automatically read in, the data contained therein are extracted and the data are entered into databanks.
Such a system for acquisition of data arises from WO 2005/043452 A1. In this system templates must be generated according to which the corresponding regions in the document are automatically located, from which documents the data are read out and imported into the databank. In this system incorrectly read data sets are corrected by hand. This system is characterized in that the existing templates are automatically corrected using the manual corrections or new templates are automatically generated using the manual corrections.
In these wholly automatic systems, in which the documents are automatically imported, data are automatically extracted and the extracted data are automatically entered into a databank (insofar as no corrections are necessary). These systems are provided for “big industry” use, i.e. for production conditions of standardized workflows or documents.
Outside of the copy+paste function explained above, for the regular data acquisition from documents (for which such wholly automatic systems are not worthwhile) there are no means that support the data acquisition of data contained in documents, whereby the documents are displayed in document applications on a computer screen and the data contained therein are to be transferred into data applications.